Mississippi River Pool 7 Bass Fishing Report

I sure love this time of the year. Crisp, cool air. A little fog on the water, and sunrises that never last long enough.

After a recent trip to the Upper Mississippi chasing Smallies, it was time to get back on my home waters and see what the local LM Bass were up to. It didn’t take long to figure a solid pattern. Pictured here, is my Dad holding a nice 2lb+ LM Bass caught on a June Bug Hoo-Daddy. Many of our fish for the morning were found flipping plastics on weed edges. We really couldn’t develop any breaking point in terms of baits. Lots of times, we’ll try different baits to see what they will eat and what they won’t. It was easy enough to see those LM had the feed bag on and they were ready to go. Our best colors were June Bug, Pumpkinseed, X-mas Tree, Black Red Neon. Topwater baits were Chug Bugs, Buzzbaits, Tourney Frogs, and Lucky Craft G-Splash. I’ve really worked hard with these G-Splash baits, and the results are starting to pay off. What a great bait!!

Current has been playing a HUGE part in our bite right now. Current swept edges and points are hot! Many of the edges and points we found where the current was pushing on them held more than a few nice sized fish.

If you have spots where the current pushes on an edge and that edge is on a sweeping bend, don’t overlook the inside section of the bend. These spots seem to be holding larger fish. The LM Bass pictured here fell to a Bobby’s Perfect Frog. In recent years, I’ve found fishing these across flats and inside bends to be the perfect bait for pressured fish. About all I do is fish it a lot slower than the norm and switch up the colors. I stay away from the brighter colors and stick with more natural shades. I beleive with this cleaner water, those big LM will lay up under a frog for a moment before eating it. Many of these fish have seen WAY too many frogs and are somewhat leery in open water. Educated fish are hard fish to catch.

Lastly, anyone who’s been on the water lately, knows the duckwart has been difficult to deal with. Our day on the water was no different. It’s amazing to see entire sloughs covered in this stuff. It makes fishing difficult to say the least.

However, it can make a day on the water a real treat too. With so much of the green stuff roaming the sloughs, it doesn’t take long for it to pile up on trees, weeds, and lilly pads. Don’t overlook the canopies created by built up duckwart. Lately, they have been great places to find lots of hungry LM Bass.

In the picture shown, the current is running from left to right. If ouy look real hard, you can see my Dad’s line running into the edge of the canopy. This one inparticular gave us a couple fat LM Bass.

What we’ve been doing is taking plastics like Brush Hogs, Tubes, etc.. and casting them to the edge of the canopy and fishing back parallel along the edge. After we’ve completely exhausted that presentation, we pull up ahead of the canopy and cast back beyond the edge onto the duckwart. Then, very similar to a frog we pull the bait to the edge and let it fall through giving it a natural appearance. This technique typically puts a few more fish in the boat after we’ve hit it hard from the other angle. Dont’ worry too much about the bait falling through as the duckwart is usually packed very tight. In most cases, it’s too much for a slop frog to fish through. It’s a great application for multiple baits this time of the year. It doesn’t take too long to find out what to look for either.

Good luck on the water!

-td